1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus and method for inserting filling material, preferably a hydrophobic plastic film, in the headspace area of pharmaceutical bottles so that their contents do not shift excessively during shipment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Historically, pharmaceutical bottles, after being filled with tablets or capsules, are stuffed with a section of cotton that supports the contents of the bottles from loosely shifting around during shipment, which may adversely impact the quality of the tablets and capsules. Although cotton is the main material used for the stuffing process, because cotton is hydrophilic, it tends to absorb moisture and cause the premature degradation of moisture sensitive pharmaceutical products. To solve this problem, many manufacturers of pharmaceutical products manually insert plastic film materials into the bottle in place of the cotton. The plastic material is usually hydrophobic and therefore does not contribute to the increase of moisture content of the bottles. Obviously, because of the relatively high production speeds in most of these operations, manual plastic film insertion is not a commercially viable solution. There is a need in the art for an invention that eliminates the disadvantages of cotton in pharmaceutical bottles while providing a cost effective means to automatically insert a plastic film material into the headspace of bottles.
A roll of flattened filling material, such as plastic film or tubing material, is placed on an unwind assembly. The unwind assembly device, using a set of rubberized rollers, advances predetermined lengths of filling material into a receiving member. The filling material is passed through a cutter, such as, for example, a guillotine knife, before or after it is placed in the receiving member and is held inside the receiving member via friction against the walls of the receiving member. A dispensing mechanism then forces the filling material out of the receiving member and into the headspace of a container, causing it to xe2x80x9cbucklexe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9ccrimpxe2x80x9d and remain in the bottle so that the contents of the bottle do not shift excessively during shipment.
It is an object of the present invention to fill the head space of pharmaceutical and like containers in order to support the contents of the containers from loosely shifting around during shipment which may adversely impact the quality of the tablets, capsules or other contents.
It is a further object of the present invention to fill the head space in pharmaceutical and the like containers with a material that is preferably not hydrophilic, i.e., a material that does not absorb moisture and cause the premature degradation of moisture sensitive pharmaceutical products.
It is another object of the present invention to fill pharmaceutical containers with a material, which is preferably hydrophobic, automatically and quickly in a commercially viable manner.
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from a review of the following specification and accompanying drawings.